


a storm in a teacup

by plethora



Category: Rush (2013)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/F, OT3, Post-Nürburgring, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 22:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4410152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plethora/pseuds/plethora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nikki does not need comforting or smothering with Jamie's affections. Jamie disagrees. Marlene, if awake, would call them both childish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a storm in a teacup

**Author's Note:**

> I was very recently suckered into this fandom, and immediately decided it needed more Marlene appreciation and also more lesbians. Such is life. Also I am very sorry.

Jamie doesn't really speak to Nikki about Nürburgring until six months after it happens, bar her original apology and the letter she never sent. Not of her own volition. Nikki shuts down all conversation about it, even when they're alone together and it's quiet. 

It isn't as though it's a sensitive topic. It hardly can be when there's follow up hospital visits and endless bandage changes and constant press questions. How are you healing, have you gotten used to how you look in the mirror and the infamous how can you hope to sustain a marriage looking as you do? 

Jamie's blood still boils when she thinks of that. Fierce, visceral anger, unlike Marlene's cold and measured fury. Nikki had hissed that surely that should mean they even each other out but no, and can't they just leave it. She doesn't say it sadly. She doesn't get upset or emotional. Jamie gets the feeling that she just wants to move on. 

It doesn't stop her flinching when Jamie brushes her hair back from her face to kiss her, though. Ducking away and scowling. She's grown her curls out from their close crop to cover it up a bit, but it doesn't cover the scar tissue on her cheekbone or neck. 

“Stop it.” she spits again this time, quiet and mindful of Marlene asleep beside them. 

“Why?” Jamie whispers back, and the look she receives would kill a lesser woman. 

“I grew my hair for a reason.”

There's that weird tension back again. Jamie could just let it go. Nikki wants her to let it go. Jamie steels herself and kisses the uneven, pink skin at her cheek and she can feel Nikki trembling from not recoiling. 

“You're ridiculous.” she says, and means it to hurt. 

“No more so than you.” 

She kisses her properly and isn't surprised when Nikki deepens it, licking into her mouth only to bite savagely at her lip and shove her back. 

There's a beat of silence, respite from the tension, and Jamie breathes it in for a second. The curtains are still closed and the light that filters through them is murky and difussed. Comforting. They could reasonably sleep for another few hours. She would have, had she not been disturbed by Nikki's restless fidgeting. 

“I still think you're beautiful.” Jamie says, voice unhushed. 

The reaction is something akin to throwing water on a chip pan fire, and Jamie cringes inwardly at her analogy.

Nikki rears up and grabs her by the jaw, forcing her gaze downwards as she hastily unbuttons her pyjama top, fingers clumsy. 

“You think this is beautiful? Yes?” 

Jamie finds herself looking at the uneven little patches of scars that dot her chest. There's a a particularly nasty one that streaks across the top of her breast, still pink despite all the care she's given to it. 

“You think I'm beautiful looking so scorched?” 

Jamie doesn't really understand how it's a question. 

She shrugs are much as Nikki's grip will allow, her blunt little fingernails digging in. 

“Yes?” 

Nikki makes an infuriated huffing sound and shoves her away further. 

“I wasn't beautiful before, you fucking moron.” she growls lowly. “I wasn't beautiful before and somehow a roasting has made me pretty?” she sneers, lip curling, and gets right up in Jamie's face. “Fuck you.”

She swings her legs over the sides of the bed and plops down, feet sinking into the lush carpet, before she stalks off. 

Jamie sighs and considers nudging under Marlene's arm and falling back to sleep. It's tempting. She's always so warm.

Then again, she's been getting so little sleep recently. He doesn't want to wake her over some silly spat. 

She gives her two minutes to stew, then follows, having tucked the bedclothes securely around Marlene's shoulders and kissing her cheek. Bloody Nikki being a drama queen over – well. Yeah, something big, but. But when she refuses to even talk about it, it makes Jamie a little more unforgiving each time it does surface. 

She's all on for a fight. A bit of a scrap and an angry fuck with Nikki keening from being fingered so good and Jamie getting some of the best head of her life. You know, standard argument stuff. How it usually goes, unless Marlene steps in, grace and sensibility. 

There's little chance of that now, Jamie thinks, and she's almost rubbing her hands together in glee when she rounds the corner to the kitchen/living room area and-. 

Nikki is stood, transfixed by her reflection in the black glass door of the over, and she just-

She looks crushed. 

And all that fight and scrappiness just leeches out of Jamie and sinks through the floor. 

She approaches her carefully and taps her on the shoulder when she's close enough. 

“You must'nt lie like that.” she says without turning, but her voice is shaking and she doesn't object when Jamie pulls her in against her bare chest. “You can't lie to me.”

Jamie sighs and rests her chin atop Nikki's head. 

“I'm not lying. I've never lied to you.” 

“Again, I'm expected to believe that?” 

Jamie squeezes her in frustration and Nikki lets out a small eep of surprise which she will deny even having the ability to make later. 

“Yes, you fucking idiot.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm your- because we're together. All three of us are together. There should be trust there.”

Nikki sighs and thunks her forehead lightly against Jamie's chest. 

“I do. I trust both of you completely...but you're aware that it's only you that thinks that, yes?”

“And Marlene.”

“Marlene was a given.” 

“Charming!”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“-and-”

“And I still think you're fucking gorgeous.”

Nikki sniffs and bristles, if only for show now.

“That wasn't what I was going to ask.”

“I know.”

“I was going to ask if you thought there was any point in going back to bed.”

Jamie snickers and releases her to shake her hair free from the loose ponytail she wears it in to sleep. 

“There's always a point in going back to bed with me.”

“For god's sake!”

Jamie just grins and waggles her eyebrows. 

“I didn't mean like that. I meant to sleep.”

“I know, love – but. Probably not for you, though. With your weird sleeping habits.”

Nikki makes a face. Her sleeping habits aren't weird. Getting up at 8am as routine isn't weird. She fills the kettle and flicks it on with malice.

“They're not weird.”

“You get up when you don't need to. When you've nothing to do. Both me and Marlene agree they're weird.” 

“Hmph.”

Jamie swings around the breakfast bar and wraps her arms around her waist from behind.

“Are you okay if I go back to bed for a bit?”

“Is that even a question?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes. I'll be fine. You worry too much about me. And not enough about other things.”

Jamie huffs out a laugh and presses a soft kiss to where the scars start on her temple, and Nikki lets it pass without chiding her. Just this once.

“I love you.” she says, and her voice is very quiet. Nikki nods. The kettle clicks off. 

It isn't as though their moments of domesticity and quiet are rare, but this feels- special. Somehow. 

“I'll be okay. I'm fine.” 

Jamie gives her one last squeeze and lets her go, padding back upstairs to snooze until some ungodly hour. Way past lunch, in all likelihood. 

Nikki sighs, and pours the water on her tea. She's fine, sure, but she knows she wouldn't have coped half as well without the pair of them. If at all.

She's fine.


End file.
